Selling in a post COVID-19 world.

COVID-19 is here and many businesses are worried about how to sell effectively in a chaotic world. This episode is filled with insight on how to leverage an integrated sales and marketing approach to create a human interaction your prospects and customers won’t soon forget.

In this episode, Dan and Kyle discuss:

What companies should be doing for outbound sales efforts during a crisis

TRANSCRIPT

Kyle Hamer: (00:04) Hello, welcome to the summit, the podcast where we bring you knowledge and insights from industry leaders, no fluff, no double digit overnight growth schemes. I’m your host Kyle Hamer and I’m on a mission to find secrets to success in business.

We’re having real conversations with real people to get you answers on how you elevate your career, your business to the next level. Today. Joining us on the summit is Dan tire. Dan, welcome to the show.

Kyle Hamer: (00:34) Hey, we’re glad to hear you’re here. For those of you who don’t know, Dan, Dan is the authority on inbound marketing and sales and it’s become a regular speaker, blog blogger, mentor, and coach. For those who want to harness the power of inbound marketing to improve their bottom line.

He’s one of the original members of HubSpot. It was actually their first salesperson in 2007 recently. He coined the term smarketing, which is the alignment of sales and marketing and a smart way.

Dan’s favorite thing about sales, and he will tell you this is to always be helping. His goal is to do the most good. He can do for the universe. And he loves helping local startups and serves as a mentor for executives in young people with heart and ambition.

But the best thing about Dan and what he’s probably best known for, it’s his energy. Dan, did I miss anything?

Dan Tyre: (01:26) No, that was awesome. I want to take you on the road with me. And that was the biggest buildup ever. Oh my goodness. Although it’s smarketing, you gotta say it like you’re from Brooklyn. Say it like the back of your throat.

Dan Tyre: (01:38) There you go. All right, Brooklyn. That’s awesome. And uh, Kyle, thank you so much for having me on the show. Super excited about this, right. And ready to help your listeners, right. Navigate like the new normal because we live in very interesting times, right?

President, I know. I was in Houston and the name of my presentation was, uh, how to make 2020 your best year ever. And a picture of a guy on a motorcycle at the starting gate and he was on fire.

I’m like, yeah, this isn’t going so far. So well, so far this year, right? Who knew? Right? And now we’re here April and like there’s just all this stuff going on.

So I’m very happy to be here and at your service and at your listeners and prospects and clients service and the greater Houston area and across North America to help navigate this process.

Kyle Hamer: (02:30) I appreciate that. So, so a couple of things here. One, today’s topic is we’re going to talk about selling during the transition and setting up for success in a post coven 19 world.

Um, we are, we’re, we’re really in interesting times and when we talked on, I saw you in February in Houston. You did, you had the guy that was on the motorcycle, he was in the gate ready to go, and then it’s like evil Knievel, his motorcycle blew up.

What is it you’re seeing going on in the world today? Like how should businesses approach selling during this transition?

Dan Tyre: (03:00) All right, so I get asked all the time, first of all, as I’m a member of HubSpot, employee number six, thanks for the shout out. I’m celebrating my 13th work anniversary in June, right? Uh, for HubSpot, right? Uh, there’s been quite a transition over the last 13 years in regards to what we refer to as the inbound revolution.

And in the old days, right? Pre 2007, salespeople got all the glory, right? Salespeople control the world. They had all the money, they got all the investment. Uh, if you wanted to grow your business, you invested in a sales process and marketing was always in the dog house, right?

They got 5% of the budget. They were built in excuse. And if I wasn’t making my number, it was marketing’s fault. Either they didn’t provide enough leads and therefore is your fault or you provided too many leads.

Dan Tyre: (03:52) And it was unclear which ones I should call first. So it was always your fault. Uh, with the change in the inbound revolution in 2007, the shift has happened where buyers have much more knowledge and according to recent research, between 93 and 96% of all purchases, B and B to C start with a Google search or social media inquiries, right?

So you see it all the time. People are gone. You have a good accountant, you know, somebody who can mow my lawn, you know, somebody who can do a divorce law or something like that. And uh, all of those like start online because you’re either trying to get a word of mouth reference or you’re trying to shorten the process. So the inbound revolution we wrote a book about, it’s on Hockenberry and I called the inbound organization is how to strengthen and bill your company’s future use inbound principles, right?

Dan Tyre: (04:43) And what it means is you’re going to treat people like human beings, right? First and foremost, which kinda that’s just the way you roll, right?

You’re sitting there with your, uh, your football hat on. You’re like talking to people, you like the personal relationship. And most people don’t like that. Number two, you’re gonna add value before extracting value. That’s what you do at this podcast. You’re educating people at no charge.

Why? Because you want to help them. And then, um, like a subset of those people will want to go ahead and, um, they want to do business with you. And then you have to provide very specific information [inaudible] based on where people are. So in this new normal, and people ask me all the time, can you prospect?

The answer is yes. Right four times the people are picking up the phone now cause we’re all sheltered at home.

Dan Tyre: (05:31) I, we’re all going stir crazy and my wife makes me like sleep in a tent in the backyard, right? We we want to uh, like be aligned with the right way to approach things.

And so, uh, you can pick up the phone because even if you’re the internal revenue service, people are going to pick up the phone just so that they can talk to somebody. Number two, are you going to now say, how are you doing? Right?

As long as you’re, and you’re not like moving too quickly, are you safe? Are you healthy? That’s a great way of starting a conversation. Like you would start if you went to your neighbor’s barbecue or went to your bowling league or you got back at all. And then, uh, HubSpot has been publishing data and publishing.

Uh, the way in which approach the like the business conversation and what we’ll typically say is I’m calling healthcare companies, manufacturing companies, um, uh, oil and gas companies in Houston, right?

Dan Tyre: (06:30) That have been affected by the new normal. And uh, some of them are very focused on their employees. Uh, some of them are in their customers, some of them are looking for new ways to grow, right? And we’ll ask them, are you in a survival mode? Are you in adapt mode? Are you in growth mode?

It’s very, very interesting because there are certain industries like restaurants and um, uh, cruise ships and hotels and those people are in, they’re in survival mode. You can still help them, right? You can still offer them free stuff. And Kyle, I know you’re a big believer in using all of the free tools, right?

To help them do their personal development HubSpot Academy or give them, make my persona or run a website grader. All of that is helping them. It’s all free. It’s all something that you do because in 2020, if you start a relationship, they will never forget it, right?

Dan Tyre: (07:23) Number two, there’s a large swath of the economy that are in adapt mode, right? That they are convinced that they had a space to face sales Dame that went from customer to customer that doesn’t work anymore. So now they have to transition.

I’ve done a handful of webinars, how to transition your face to face sales team over to a remote sales team. And it’s amazing because you and I have bet how long we been on zoom for. Oh, we,

Kyle Hamer:(07:28)

Oh man, I’ve been on, I’ve been on zoom and or web conferencing tools since 2007.

Dan Tyre: (07:31)

Right? You just have all the background stuff. You know how to do it. It’s like second nature to you, right? The first time that we met on a zoom, right? It was like boom, boom, boom. There’s a whole swath of the Academy. This is brand new, right? That they’re grappling with.

Dan Tyre: (08:10) All right, well what do our sales people do? What are they going to approach it? How are they gonna think it’s right? And it’s a very real thing and there’s lots of ways you can help them adapt. Uh,

I’m going to send you a blog article on HubSpot’s statistics for the month of March, right? Kip Bodner is our grade CMO, took an analysis of 70,000 ups by customers and said that when site traffic is actually awesome, right up like 27% because you’re at home, right? What are you going to do?

You’re going to work on personal development and try to figure out all the things you never had time for. Deal creation is down down about 23% as an eternal optimist. I love that because what that says is 75% of businesses still going through it, and that is my personal experience as well.

There’s lots of business being going on, a good entrepreneur and a house to figure out, all right, how do I adapt to the new norm?

Dan Tyre: (09:01) Right? And when your outreach, when you’re warm calling, right? When you’re researching, right, you let the customer decide, use your listening skills, desire you in survival, and if they are, you just listen to what God are you.

Now if they’re in adaptive mode, you’re like, all right, tell me your three biggest inhibitors to growth. Right. That’s a great question to ask because they’ll go, Oh, I didn’t think of it like that. And like that helps prioritize the three things that they need. And then, uh, uh, certain segment of the economy is in growth mode.

And if you’re selling a health supplements, e-commerce, uh, online learning, um, programs, uh, I just talked to a company, uh, who had curriculum for K through six on history and geography and when the new normal head, they gave away all of their curriculum, they go tires, the right thing to do.

Dan Tyre: (09:57) We’re all Americans. No one has this curriculum. We’re going to give it to everybody now they’re working for, and they’re in huge growth mode.

All of their, like the studies weekly, his name and the company, all of their information is exploding because people are like, they need something to teach people. Now all of a sudden they have to now transition to getting some of those folks to pay for it. Right.

But it’s still a great way of understanding that there’s a segment of the economy that is gross. So if you’re typically servicing people are in survival mode, you have to pivot as well into adapt or grow. You have to find industries, right?

Do the research, do the work that are in adapt and grow. And then, uh, I think my personal opinion is that it’ll be a little bit of time before we go back to normal and this will change things forever.

Dan Tyre: (10:44) I was talking to an attorney, Aaron Phoenix, and um, she was required to like put on a suit. Where’s the last time you put on a suit? Cow?

Oh man. Last time I had a sport coat on was probably six months ago that it had been like, nah, I’m not talking to sport coat. I’m talking to suit with pinstripe. I know it’s been a long time since I’ve been, I represent was a suit.

I know if I’m not on wall street, the next time you see me, I’m going to be in my gasket. Right. That’s just like I, I’ve even given up college shirts. Who wants to wear those? She was required to be in the office five days a week.

The value there is when you people saw anyone in the office working late, that’s how you got corporate. Like a encouragement right now. No one goes to the office now, right?

Dan Tyre: (11:35) They’re working for Mo now. Billings are up 19%. They’re like that. I don’t think they’re going to have a, you have to come to work policy anymore. I’m going, that’s amazing.

And there are whole industries like that because right when you’re working from home, you don’t have to commute. When you’re working from home. You can have these kinds of conversations. The say that HubSpot is that our remote workers, we have about 300 of them now, uh, perform 13% better cause they’re not interrupted.

They don’t have to commute. Right. They have more FaceTime, they do more customer meetings. Right. And so, uh, the new normal means people will be forever like impacted by that. And it will try to adopt these new scenarios for, um, generating better business.

Kyle Hamer: (12:19) You know, it’s, it’s really interesting to hear you talk about, uh, some of the stats that you’re, you’re seeing in HubSpot and the conversations that you had specifically. What I think is interesting is, is the reduction of, of deals through put at 23%.

What I would be very curious to see on the backend of that is, is is the deal reduction in that people aren’t putting fluff in because they know to be scrutinized further now and if there’s a better close percentage on the backend.

So we got rid of fake deals in the pipeline or is there really just that much of a slowdown in, in the transactions that are happening? Either we clean up our pipeline or did we, I mean w w w what if you had to hypothesize, what would you say is happening there?

Dan Tyre: (12:59) That’s a great question. Uh, like one of the things I’ve learned in, um, the inbound revolution is go with the data and the facts. And so now we’re in the process of cutting that data into like region, into vertical market, into country. And it’s a little bit different everywhere.

I’m going to say that in any like a challenge, when you have 25% of the economy that just stops, right? That’s going to add some level of effect. And if you’re selling in the hotel industry, they’re not buying anything, right?

Because they don’t know when it’s over. They don’t want to invest. There’s a small group of those like customers who will adapt and are using it as a competitive advantage, right?

But, um, in most cases I think that, uh, like a significant percentage of the people who in the past would talk just to get their toe in the water, don’t want to talk now because they’re concentrating on other priorities.

Dan Tyre: (13:51) And I think you’ll see a cleaner pipeline, not based on sales people’s behavior or um, their interpretation. But if, um, the customer will self select and of course that is born of the inbound revolution as well. In the old days, you had a salesperson who said a kind of, I think you should move to the next product.

And you’re like, Oh, why is that? And you’re like, well, I’ll give you a better functionality. Things like that. Today, UB spot provides through your, um, marketing agency free products, right? And we encourage you to start with, right? And Kyle, do you like free stuff? Okay?

It turns out people love free stuff and kind of, why do you love free stuff? Because it doesn’t cost me anything. That’s one. It’s not so much that you’re cheap, right? It’s that you get to figure out if it works for you without a greater commitment.

Dan Tyre: (14:41) And it turns out, uh, if you use the free software that free HubSpot CRM, the free marketing software, the free, um, service software, right?

Then you can gain and understand a little bit more of the value. And then what happens is you say, I really liked this, but I need a little bit more functionality. So maybe you move to a paid product that’s $50 a month.

Maybe you moved to a paid product that’s $100 a month. Maybe you moved to a paid product, but you got to decide, right? We have this concept called PQL product qualified leads where a certain percentage of our business comes, never want a salesperson calling you, but you’re like, Oh, I need more functionality.

I’m going to sell shirt. And that’s ultimately better. Right? You asked me a question in the briefing meeting, do you think BDRs SDRs go away? They never go away because as you know, picking up the phone is a huge positive, a way of starting a relationship, right?

Dan Tyre: (15:36) For the entire, um, 13 years of the inbound revolution. It was not selling. It was helping you help first, right?

You establish that foundation and then if you help people, they’re predisposed to consider you when they’re looking to a paid product.

The more people you help, the more successful you’ll be. I’d have a famous blog article, all of them always be closing his dad, how to always be helping, which has generated tens of thousands of leads and thousands of HubSpot customers because it’s the new way of doing it right now, the buyer’s in control, right?

The salesperson has more, right? They say about a million sales positions will be eliminated over the next 12 months. Right, and I think that’s true, right?

People will realize, right that marketing is more important than sales. Like that generating and starting those conversations online is critical and your salesperson is going to have to cycle in, establish their expertise in a particular vertical market or size of company and then shepherd the prospect through saying these are your options.

You get to decide and then ultimately saying, I think this is the right configuration for you. This is why you pick the time to get started and asking the right questions so that you can start the relationship.

Kyle Hamer: (16:57) There are, there are several things you said that I would love the pack but I want to start with this first. It’s, it’s really interesting you talked about you know, sales and marketing in this shift where Hey, we think marketing may be prioritized because what we’re seeing right now is that a lot of marketing budgets are getting frozen.

People are saying, Oh, we’re not going to spend money. And I think sometimes it’s a misrepresentation because advertising dollars might get frozen, but not necessarily marketing dollars. And those, those are those, those tend to be two different buckets of, of dollars and cents.

But specifically to what we’re, what I think it would, it would be interesting to understand for those that are listening is you talked about there being a shift and providing value and creating relationships.

What is it that an organization needs to do? Because you, you talked about the, uh, you talked about the education company that’s giving away stuff for free. You talk about

Dan Tyre: (17:46) these weekly last week. I’m like, hold on a second. You gave away the things that you saw for free. They go, yes, I go, that’s the most beautiful thing I’ve heard. I go, why did you do that? They go, it’s a time of stress for Americans. All these teachers were at home.

We had 24 hours to make that decision. I’m only, can I use that bubble in there? Yeah, doctor. So I’m like, Oh my goodness, what great community, what great service. All these instructors now have all these kids who are at home.

They need curriculum. What do they do? They didn’t ask for money. They didn’t friggin deliberate. They’re like boom, here take it. And I’m like, okay you guys, I’m at your service. That is awesome.

So they helped first. Now we’re figuring out how we transition to, some of them are going to pay, but I’ll tell you, some of them will say, you saved my bacon. They’re definitely going to be considered in all of the conversations when you’re buying your curriculum for, um, the fall of 20, 20. Cause why wouldn’t you?

Right. It’s like if somebody throws you a life preserver, you’re going to remember who that person is and you’re going to try to like a book on their boat. The next time you’re going for a cruise around the Lake.

Kyle Hamer: (18:51) So, so if you had to classify which group would that fall into? Are they in survival? Are they in the adapt? Are they in the growth?

Dan Tyre: (18:57) You’d think they were survival and they were totally in adapt because they erred on the side of, um, like we want to help people. They, they’re high adapt. Maybe even growth, right? They have tons of people now they’re calling people up and you say, did that help out?

They’re like, are you kidding me? That was amazing. Oh my goodness. I don’t know what I would’ve done. If you’re like, okay, well, is it possible for us to move to a big land? They’re like, yes.

Let me tell you who the person is you talk to. Let me tell you and I’ll do a video testimonial for you. Let me explain how you get your curriculum into this school district. Right. And uh, it’s amazing and a perfect example of why studies weekly, number one did the right thing, used shelving.

That’s sales and helping as the foundation for starting the relationship.

Dan Tyre: (19:44) Those people, we’ll never forget how they opened their heart, how they added value first, and then some may continue with their current curriculum.

That’s okay. Right? These guys are significant business people. They know that, that you know when 1000% of the time, but yeah, they also know that some of the people who had a chance to look at the curriculum saw the curriculum is good, saw that it was better than what they were offering, saw that they were willing to make an investment and a, it’s likely that they will see like a growth going in the 2021 school year.

Kyle Hamer: (20:17) So that sounds like a company that maybe has a product or it’s been, it’s productized. What about companies that are in service industries? I mean, whether it’s oil changes or a car mechanics, you know, you, Barbara’s in salon hunters, they’re going to have to come back to work at some point.

How can, how can other organizations leverage this type of thinking to help facilitate and reignite the conversation in the services industry?

Dan Tyre: (20:42) Yeah, and adapt. This is what entrepreneurs do. No one knew going into 2020 was going to be like, but you’ve got to sit there and say, all right, what is my a problem of my customer? The thing that I would suggest is I want you to niche.

You know, Kyle, I’ve been telling you since I’ve known you the riches or in the niche, because in 2017 you could be a generalist work with everybody. And I was okay with that, right? In 2014, the average company had six competitors in 2019 the average company has 44, right?

Therefore, if I have a problem, I want the guy from Houston who lived in Nebraska, Kansas and Iowa to work on that because I know you know, that kind of business. And if I’m going to stomachache, I don’t want a doctor, I want a Gastrointerologist because I want somebody to solve it very, very quickly.

Dan Tyre: (21:28) I want to move somebody who understands me. I know like everybody says this, but it’s all about me, Kyle, right? I don’t really care about the services you provide.

I care about one thing, my problem and your ability to solve. So if you say no tire, I work with um, early employees of a multimillion dollar software companies. You have speaking engagements all over the world that want to double their speaking fees. Does that sound like you?

I’m like, that sounds exactly like me. Tell me more. Right, and then we have this conversation. So one of the most difficult things is to narrow your niche so that you have a hundred or 200 prospects depending on the number of net new businesses that you need, and you can become an expert in that niche, right?

We call that the flywheel. We want you to pick your niche and then we want you to leverage your customers because your customers are more important than your sales team, your customers.

Dan Tyre: (22:22) You have to have a user case studies. You have to have testimonials, you have to have YouTube videos because when a salesperson calls, everybody knows he has a vested interest. When your customer sets up a reference call and says, Nana, this is what they do, right?

This is what they need improvement. This is why I bought, this is what I thought I needed. That’s not what I did. What this person did is have, now it’s a third party. It’s like a human review or um, testimonial, right? And now it’s a completely different ballgame. So we urge all of our, um, are our partners and customers in the new normal.

You circle the wagons, we call it customer engagement, right? You bear hugged your current customers and you tell them, all right, I love you as a customer. You actually pick up the phone and thank them for being a customer. When was the last time somebody called you Kyle and said, thank you for being a good desk?

Dan Tyre: (23:16) I’m probably not a good customer. I mentioned, who are you, the Bennett customer and if somebody called you up? I ran a function for a handful of partners and uh, after I ran the function, the guy at the restaurant called me up and he said, uh, Hey, it sounded like you guys were having a good time.

I wanted to thank you for your business. If you have another like a cocktail party like that, please feel free to call me personally and I’ll make sure we have the same. I’m like, Oh goodness, thank you so much.

Your, what’s your name again? And, uh, but ready to go. Uh, another, uh, like, uh, adapting story other than, uh, studies weekly is here in Phoenix. There’s a, there’s a restaurant that decided like, okay, we’re a pretty high scale restaurant. I wonder if there’s anyone who wanted a private chef that never wanted a private chef cause we’ll be your private chef now you tell us what time you want to eat, you text us at like we’ll deliver at the same time or if you want us to change it, right.

Dan Tyre: (24:14) They run their kitchen right and they drop off the, the food outside your door at the exact time in these little boxes. Right. And it’s Courtenay world-class food. Oh I can, that is brilliant.

How do you figure something out? They’re like, well we’ve tried to think from our customer’s perspective what they really wanted and the best way to deliver that under the way we could. And we wanted to employ our people so that we have, so that people used to be waiters, now they’re drivers, right?

They’re all masked up and they got the gloves and like they’re like, we’re, we’re trying really hard to like follow all those, the protocols. And although their business is down, it’s not like flat up down. And it’s a good example of a adopting in the new norm.

Kyle Hamer: (25:00) It almost sounds like in, in our new normal, especially in the transition time that we’re in, that a lot of it is adapt and survive, right? It’s not necessarily adapting, grow, but it’s adapting survive for now. That might metamorphis you into completely different business.

Dan Tyre: (25:13) It depends on if you’re selling health supplements, if you’re doing e-learning, if you’re doing drugs, you’re in growth mode. Cannabis, I don’t know how it is in Houston, but here that’s viewed as an essential service right there going crazy.

Everything’s been ordered online, right? Therefore, the ability for, um, people to realize that all the activity is online, which this is just a little Bush in the direction was going anywhere. That your website is like your receptionary, right? That is the way that you’re welcoming people. And Kyle as a inbound agency, you know that your ability to welcome people with [inaudible] top of the funnel offers when they come to your website the first time.

Critically important, I can’t tell you the number of websites you go to and there’s no like welcoming top of the funnel, right? I can’t tell you the number of companies that go and show the same calls to action and landing pages to prospects as well as customers, which we call that client engagement, right?

Dan Tyre: (26:09) Will you bear hug your customers, you want your clients to come back [inaudible] [inaudible] at least once a week. You want to make sure that they see specialized, uh, calls to action landing phase so you can cross sell up, sell, add more value, help them like have a separate part of your uh, website for um, like, uh, like uh, customer only content, right?

And so they feel like the money that they pay you is well worth it. So you’re helping them solve additional problems and locking in those customers, making sure they don’t go away is a good way of, um, like circling the wagons and make sure you can grow as a, as we come up, we’ve jumped, we’ve jumped over to marketing and sales in today.

Wow. It’s, it’s, it’s all blended together. That’s what I invented our new 2007. I was getting drunk with my Gobi associate, uh, COO at the time.

Dan Tyre: (27:06) It brilliant guy taught me a ton. And um, when I first started up so we didn’t have the inbound leads, right? I was cold calling for HubSpot.

Don’t tell anybody. And I would call people, right? Uh, like everybody I knew and I’d say there’s this thing called inbound. They’d asked me two questions. Number one, uh, what is inbound? And I explain it is helping before selling. It’s treating people like human beings.

It’s optimizing your website so people find you first and then they’d say, well look, does it work? [inaudible] I dunno, he got like 20 customers. It seems to make sense to me. Uh, now in 2020, we know it works. We know it’s a huge competitive advantage.

I tell people in my public presentations, if you’re a CEO, you have more than 10 people in your sales team, take your two least performing sales people, fire them.

Dan Tyre: (27:54) You have all the money to market, and they’re like, what? I go, you know, they’re not going to make their quota anyway. They’re not good representatives of your company, right, and you’re overspending in sales because that’s the way you’ve always done it, right?

In the past. You’ve like invested there because there’s a quicker return on investment. I go, but that’s not the way it works. Now you need somebody like Kyle, right? You take that money, you give it to an agency or a solutions partner, right? Or you give it to marketing because right? 65% of the process happens online before somebody wants to talk to a salesperson.

In certain industries, it’s 99% buy a car. In Houston, you don’t talk to a salesperson 50% of the way through. You’re like, here’s the Kelly blue book costs. You’re either going to sell to me at this cost or $1,000, that’s where I’m going across the street or buyer from Carvana.

Dan Tyre: (28:43) Right? And I tell marketers, if you’re not practicing in down quick, because unless you got a million, um, contacts in your database, the average like, um, customer database atrophies back 23 to 27% a year.

People like move, they don’t want to see your stuff anymore. They moved to get promoted, things like that. Those people, right? Um, you need to con con continually refresh. You have to get more contacts in. And inbound is a great way for you to like connect with people who are there.

And I tell salespeople, if you’re not getting inbound leads, quit and go get inbound leads. Because I spent all my time talking to people who I’d say, well, I saw you came to the website, you downloaded that ebook on international inc converse. What were you looking for help?

And they’re like, Oh, you know what I was looking for? And we start the relationship. I don’t push him. I know that they’re interested because of the trigger, uh, event. And it’s 90% of the format of sales was like, um, prospect. Now it’s much, much easier.

And now how, you know, you can teach people how to use video email, which is the biggest innovation in emails since it invention of email. You could teach them how to do the warm calling, no more cold calling, all warm calling, right?

And you’re an expert and understanding how to get your sales people to new new age engagement where you start the relationship

Kyle Hamer: (30:07) and it builds over time. I think so you know, if I could summarize it, Dan, it sounds to me like one of the things that’s really important, and it’s cliche but, but one of the things that’s really important for businesses, owners, entrepreneurs and leaders to keep in mind is that as we’re transitioning, the thinking that got you here is not necessarily the thinking that’s going to get you there. And yeah.

Dan Tyre: (30:31) Yeah, I would agree. 100% entrepreneurs are always entrepreneurs. What makes you a great entrepreneur is you’ll pivot, you’ll take in all of the information, you’ll see what’s going on and you’ll make a new assessment, right?

For some people in that has been a way of life for 10 years. Right? That’s just the way it is. That’s the way they’ve scaled their business and they understand that competitive advantage and know that it’s a better thing. For some people it’s still brand new, right?

They’ve heard about inbound, but they’re like, eh, not my industry. I was working with a CPA firm in Australia and they’re like, no, no, no, no, no. This is word of mouth. We don’t get our leads that way. I go, I know you don’t, but where do you think those leads go? And they’re like, well, what do you mean?

Dan Tyre: (31:19) And they’re like, well, I dunno. Let me check 1.7 million. I’m like, well, who are all those people? You think they are all CPAs or do you think they’re looking for a CPA? [inaudible] he’s like, yeah, but that’s not the way I worked.

I go, that’s the way it works now because if I’m in the United States and need to hire a CPA for my grandfather who lives in Sydney, right? That’s all I’m doing. That’s how I’m finding, I’m not going to call a lawyer cause I don’t have one.

I’m going to find it online. That’s why you need to trick out your website. That’s why you need to say like, we help like this demographic in Sydney with this type of accounting problem and if you’re niche enough, right, and you can grow to the top of the search, you’ll get all of the business.

Kyle Hamer: (32:01) You know, Dan, it sounds like in many ways what you’re, what you’re promoting is this, this seismic shift happening in the market where salespeople are no longer salespeople, they’re just order takers. It’s like driving up to McDonald’s and saying, I’d like fries and a double quarter pounder and they say, Oh, would you like, I don’t know, it’s your choice, but would you like a ice cream cone to go with that today?

Or would you like a large Coke instead? Like is that where we’re headed with, with business in interactivity here is, is to this space where marketing has done all the work in sales is just collecting the money.

Dan Tyre: (32:35) I know sales is still super important and the relationship still important, right? It’s just different. In the old days, I spent all my time saying, you should buy this right now. I spent all my time diagnosing what you need.

The hardest thing for a salesperson is if I can help you, but you’re a not exactly the right fit. This was driven home to me when, um, I was looking to buy a refrigerator in Cambridge and the refrigerator person says, where do you live? And I’m like, Arlington.

He goes, okay, don’t buy the refrigerator for me. Like, excuse me, you don’t want to send me the refrigerator cause I want to sell you the refrigerator. But the guy in Arlington, he is closer to you. If you have to do a service call, it would be better for him.

Right. And I’m like, you would send me to a competitor?

Dan Tyre: (33:19) And he’s like, yeah, I would because it’s better for you. And, um, he’s like the, it’s not that big a deal. He does the same thing for me, but we both know that you’re better off there based on where you live. And I’m like, okay, this is a refrigerator salesperson who’s giving up, I don’t know, a couple of hundred dollars commission because it’s in my best interest.

I’m like, that’s the greatest thing ever. And it, it’s hard for sales people to do it. We’ll lose a million sales jobs and one of the channels challenges will be like over time, this will force that, right? Because, um, people will be a little bit more focused on the right type of business, right?

But salespeople have to more to be an industry consultant. They have to ask the right questions. They have to have very good listening skills. They have to have a range of understanding solutions that exceeds their own products.

Dan Tyre: (34:06) Right. In other words, if I think that a, there’s another product that’s better for you. I can’t be afraid of saying, you know, Kyle, you’re a good guy, but I’m not going to sell it to you.

In fact, in the inbound organization, a chapter 23 is my, a friend of professor David Winehouse. And um, he, uh, we have an explicit example of somebody called with their credit card ready to buy the HubSpot software and he refused to take the order and they’re like, no, no, no, no, you don’t understand.

We’re ready to buy. And he’s like, I know, but you’re not a good fit. You’re not at the right level where you’re ready to. And they were best like, who’s your boss? I’m going to tell I’m going to send a like, threatening email. And uh, they did. And uh, David Winehouse was like, it’s not the right that it’s not the right time.

Dan Tyre: (34:52) Right. They came back two years later and said, you were 100% right. Right. We made a huge mistake. We wasted time. We wasted effort. We never should have moved when we did [inaudible] they want us was like, yeah.

So we wrote it up because it’s the hardest thing for a salesperson to do is for me to say, no, HubSpot’s not a good fit for you. This is why you’re better off going into Marquetto or act out or something like that. And if that’s the truth, you gain more longterm credibility, right?

You’re going to have happier customers. There’s enough business for everybody to go around and you gotta do what you gotta do, right? If as soon as you know and you and I have high trust, as soon as you know that I’m acting in your best interest, right? First of all, that broadens my personal brand.

Dan Tyre: (35:34) Second of all, that ensures that I don’t bring on marginal customers. [inaudible] all right? I want all my customers to be very, very happy because in 2020 that’s what you expect. [inaudible] days, if you had a problem, you call my boss.

He called me into the office and yelled at, then nothing else happened. I keep continue to do it. Now you’re on Twitter and Instagram and LinkedIn and saying, ah, but some subsequent guys are either great or nah, they’re not so great and we much prefer that you’re saying good stuff about us.

That’s why our reviews are so good because it’s not what you, it’s not about the product today. It’s how you position the product, how you sell the product, how you’re listening skills and your diagnosis is focused towards um, getting the right customers.

Kyle Hamer: (36:19) So again, I mean, just the last, the last couple of minutes here, we’ve touched on some things that I was going to ask, which is like what is it, what does a new sales person going to look like?

How are the people going to ensure that they’re not part of that million jobs lost? But I mean, you summarized it pretty good. And what it boils down to, if I could say it in a sentence, is have a human to human conversation and be, start getting good at asking questions.

Dan Tyre: (36:43) That’s awesome. That’s right. You can see blog articles that I’ve wrote called, um, there’s um, actually, uh, a inbound sales certification that a HubSpot Academy inbound sales certification takes two hours and you’ll learn the new way of engaging. It starts with identifying good fit customers.

And as we mentioned, the riches are in the niches. It starts with a conversation where you pick up the phone and you say, I’m calling a HubSpot agency owners in Houston that, uh, are looking to generate a handful of additional high value retainers and need a little help, right? It moves to a discovery call. In the old days we did a product demo.

No more product demos don’t cares about your product, right? They care about can you get the result that you say that you’re getting right or that you’re, all these other folks are getting, everybody cares about let’s get this bread, let’s figure it out.

Dan Tyre: (37:39) What we need to do to like fix the problem. And of course, buying the software is the easy part. Implementing it and managing it is a challenge, right? And these relationships, these marketing relationships, if they’re done right, it’s not an RFP, it’s not what product features.

Everybody has the same product features pretty much. And if they don’t, they’ll all have them in six months.

The key is what’s the relationship like? How does this company look at the long term? Did they support their ecosystem? They support their partners. Do they support their employees? Do you have good, um, retention? Do people like working there? Is there a, a vision, a mission and a book?

The inbound organization is all about how to build that corporate culture so that you can be a mission driven, a business built on it though.

Kyle Hamer: (38:26) Well, the one thing that I know about you, Dan, is that whatever culture and company you’re a part of, it’s all about having fun. I mean, at the end of the day, you still got to get work done, but you’re going to have a good time getting there. So you got any advice for people who are feeling like, man, this is a slog right now.

And it’s, it’s tough out there. How to add a little fun into their daily routine.

Dan Tyre: (38:47) Yeah, that’s awesome. First of all, here in control of your brain, your brain is a very important, um, like, um, Oregon, arguably the most important organ in your body. And uh, you can be as happy as you want to be, even in like very, very difficult times if you’re, uh, impacted by, um, like the virus in the United States or someplace, right? It’s not going to be [inaudible] specifically fun, right?

But you gotta like be intentional about what you’re going to do and like, realize where you’re there. If you’re in adapt mode, right?

This is an unprecedented time or growth mode for you to leverage all of the things that we’ve learned, right? And understand that I’m, there are people who are going to fall into each one of those categories to the best of your ability. If you’re in one of the industries that are in survival ball, find a new industry, right?

Dan Tyre: (39:36) It’s as good a time as any and you got to move, you gotta move quick and I understand you gotta be intentional about what you want and then, um, then we can like get there.

I like to have fun by working with other people. I like to have fun by working in small groups. I like to have fun by helping people, uh, build their, um, longterm vision board as a somebody who’s in one of my programs.

Now, Kyle, I know you’ve done a vision board of the aspirations and things that you want to accomplish, right? Which is super fun. Uh, I strongly suggest that you get a motivational playlist on. Okay, Kara, if you’re a Snoop dog or a Aerosmith or what kind of person you are, but I want to make sure that you’re listening to good dance. I want to make sure that you are staying healthy, right?

Good solid sleep. Um, good diet and exercise. Like some people are gaining a little weight. My wife, I think she’s probably lost 15 pounds, like she’s on this rigid schedule. That’s good. And then, um, my other suggestion is get a S S P a shameless self promotion file for your email.

Whenever anybody sends you something good, you move it over to your SSP. So when you’re feeling like the big dog eats you, you go in and just read all the great emails that somebody sent you and makes you feel a little.

Kyle Hamer: (40:52) That’s fantastic advice. Well, I’ve really appreciated you sharing, um, a lot about the inbound marketing organization, a sales and post coven 19 world. I’m going to ask you one last question as we leave here. Can you explain to the audience what mutton busting is?

Dan Tyre: (41:09) Okay. So when I met Kyle down in Houston, right? Um, we did an AMA event and then a, a HubSpot user group event. If you’re OB spot user and listening to this, uh, just Google HubSpot user group in whichever city you’re in and you’ll see a list of all of them.

And, uh, I’m talking to the good people of Houston and I’m working in Houston for a decade and love it. People from Houston. Mmm. Sometimes they wear weird clothes. Sometimes they show up in a Stetson hat, like a big, that’s an app like on television. And sometimes they have like a belt buckle the size of a cat. Right?

But they’re very cordial in the handies like Houston, say like, you don’t know what you’re hunting for, Dan, don’t get off the porch, which is like homespun wisdom. I’ve always thought the people, Houston pretty smart.

Dan Tyre: (41:58) And so I’m talking to her and I’m like, well, what do you guys do in February in like Houston? And they go the rodeo. And I’m like, really? And then like, yeah, the rodeo is great on what’s the best part of rodeo.

And they are like mutton, Boston, they all say it at the same time. And I’m like, hold on a second, right? You’re pulling my leg. What is mutton busting? And like, they’re all sharing at the dinner table how people in Houston, right.

Um, like [inaudible] dress up their kids like hockey players and put them on the back of the sheep and then send them across the rodeo. I’m like, no way there. Go. Yep. That’s mutton, Boston. And they’re like, you’re not saying it right, but yeah, I’m like, that’s, you can’t do that if you, they put you in jail. If you were in Boston and you did button Boston, they’re like, no, it’s super funny. It’s super interesting.

Right? And kids love it, right? If they fall off a ship, it’s not going to get them. I’m like, okay. No one outside of a hundred mile radius of, uh, Houston knows anything about button busting. [inaudible] as Kyle has proven to me is inaccurate. Right.

Because Kyle, you have family that was involved in the rodeo and um, Colorado and Oklahoma and New Mexico, right?

Kyle Hamer: (43:08) Yeah. My grandfather for many years would, uh, announce the pro circuit in Southwest Kansas, the Oklahoma, Texas panhandle in the New Mexico and then Eastern Colorado.

Dan Tyre: (43:16) So I’ve known about mutton busting forever and we were on a call the other day, Dan, where it’s in Northern California. So apparently you have to live under a rock to not know what mutton busting is.

All I’m saying is that state of the rotation, that is one of the funniest jokes of 2020, because it’s just a funny thing to say. It’s even a funnier thing when just Google it and see the images. Amazing. Right. And add just teaches me that uh, always learning new stuff. It’s like fascinating world we live in. Yeah. We’ll drop a link

Kyle Hamer: (43:47) getting the uh, in the, in the bio section of the podcast so people can click on it and either a watch what’s going on when you got a little four year old are repping across the road on them on a sheep or a click in and see some of the images cause they’re pretty fantastic.

Dan, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for sharing your your time. You’ve been very generous with your wisdom. It’s been great to have you.

Dan Tyre: (44:10) Thank you so much. You’re welcome. Thank you very much, Kyle. Anybody needs me for anything? You’ve got a Dan talk, www.dantyre.com you can email me dtyre@hubspot.com and I am at your service. Thank you so much, Kyle. Have a great day.

Kyle Hamer: (44:24) You do the same. Thanks everybody that’s listening. We’ve been listening to Dan tire on the summit as we’ve talked about selling a post covid-19 world. Thanks again in tune in next week for summit podcast where we make business easy, accessible, and really put sales and marketing in your lap. This has been your host, Kyle Hamer. Thank you for attending. All right, man. Thank you. That was awesome. I knew going to.

Dan TyreAward Winning Author

Dan Tyre is an authority on inbound marketing and sales and has become a regular speaker, blog writer, mentor and coach for those who want to harness of the power of inbound marketing to improve their bottom line. He joined HubSpot as a member of the original team in May of 2007 as the first salesperson for the company. Since then, Dan has held various positions in sales, sales management, recruiting, training, and expansion of the HubSpot sales team. He also created the term “Smarketing”, which is the alignment of both sales and marketing.

Dan’s favorite thing about sales is helping people, with a life motto of “always be helping”. His goal is to do the most good that he can for the universe. Dan loves helping local startups and serves as a mentor for executives and young people with heart and ambition, but a limited professional network.

In April 2018, he got to further share his knowledge with the world by publishing a book by Wiley Business Press with Todd Hockenberry called Inbound Organization: How to Build and Strengthen Your Company’s Future Using Inbound Principles.